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Saturday, September 03, 2005

GWB Plan New Orleans/Gulf Coast Stategery

The developments in the Gulf Coast area have been so overwhelming it’s taken sometime to digest it all and come up with some thoughts on the matter. In reaching these conclusions I have considered the past behaviors of this administration as well as the historic nature of the way our government deals with disaster. Here are my thoughts...

Operation Take It Easy…GWB’s Can’t Do Government.

I know I am very glad this was not an attack on the nation by a foreign enemy. The Bush administration has demonstrated once again its inability to protect people at home. The government wages war without being able to provide security for its citizens…all of its citizens. Nearly 70 percent of the population of New Orleans has not been well served by our government. The same government that promotes “Homeland Security” has proven itself to be capable of providing insecurity.

Many people say this reminds them of the days following 9/11 in that we didn’t ask the questions, “How could such a thing happen? How could our air space be breeched in such a manner? Where is the Strategic Air Command? What about NORAD? Forget about preventive intelligence from the CIA and the NSC.”

The honeymoon has been over for sometime between GWB and the people. Even his supporters are upset with the way matters are being handled. The conservative news outlets and their pundits are beginning to ask the questions we should have asked four years ago. The questions residents of New York City were asking, but the little man Rudy G. in search of a balcony hushed their inquiries. The same questions the people of Florida asked after the series of storms last hurricane season, but their inquiries got shushed with hush money. (Clever how following the storms FEMA personnel filled out the forms indicating “ice damage” in South Florida communities then after the 2004 presidential election complained that there had been fraud perpetrated by the people of those communities. I guess too many of them voted for John Kerry after all, causing the election grinches to work overtime on switching out the numbers so GWB looked good in the win column.)

The rest of the nation is surprised by the stunning lack of sense of urgency by federal agencies such as FEMA. Generally what these officials do is announce immediately after disaster strikes that they will hold a meeting sometime in the future…say in five days, to discuss what should be done by the following Thursday. Meanwhile John and Jane Q. Public along with all their dependents, including grandparents and or grandchildren wait in total discomfort, without the necessities of life for these bureaucratic bozos to make a decision and spring into action.

At a Congressional hearing last year James Lee Witt, who received bipartisan acclaim for his leadership of FEMA during the Clinton administration: "I am extremely concerned that the ability of our nation to prepare for and respond to disasters has been sharply eroded. I hear from emergency managers, local and state leaders, and first responders nearly every day that the FEMA they knew and worked well with has now disappeared."

President Bush claimed no one knew the levees would be breeched. I guess he just wasn’t listening when the Army Corps of Engineers requested funding year after year to make maintenance repairs to strengthen the dikes in and around the city built in a basin.

Some experts say it’s a matter of incompetence. Other experts suggest this disaster has been complicated by the lack of compassion for and sensitivity to the people who are mostly poor and mostly black.

Kanye West deserves much support for having the courage to say what needed to be stated about our incumbent leader.

Just as during the days of the Civil Rights movement in America, the United States is shamed before the world by its treatment of its citizens who just happen to be black.

Regardless of the reason for this debacle one thing is clear to me, we need someone in our government, the administration, the legislators or both, to be accountable for the terrible, shameful, disgraceful handling of this event.

Links to organizations established to help the poor and the hungry in America, as well as the survivors of Hurricane Katrina: